Rejoice, friends, because a new Scott Pilgrim volume is here, and the good news? It’s probably the best one so far. Without losing Scott’s likeable slacker ethos, O’Malley presents a maturation of his character, as we see that to be worthy of a real relationship, he might need to do more than defeat seven evil exes in martial combat. He might actually have to grow up a little. Seeing Scott, the perennial slacker/wastrel, try to interface with the mechanisms of reality like applying for jobs, actually doing a job and deciding if he’s infatuated or really in love is not only as funny as ever, but fairly substantial and affecting in terms of storytelling as well. Don’t fear the newfound maturity, though… there’s still plenty of chases and fights, rock and roll and videogame references, all portrayed with O’Malley’s hyper-charged and honed cartooning skills.

One of the keys to understanding why Scott Pilgrim is good is this: If you take away all of O’Malley’s stylistic innovation, his clever use of videogame logic, the ability of his characters to switch from realistic to over-the-top exaggeration, the ninjas and subspace and all the other weird stuff… you’d still have a really good story. O’Malley has crafted a terrific ensemble of believable twenty-something characters, and there’s plenty of life in simply seeing the stories of their relationships, as they figure out friendship, love and infatuation, as well as the realistic snail’s pace development of their band. The basic soap opera, wondering if any number of the characters will stay with who they’re with or choose an exciting (or in some cases, more predictable) old or new flame, makes for highly entertaining, surprisingly complex reading.

However, the thing that makes Scott Pilgrim rise from solidly produced relationship comic to spectacular buzz book is that on top of these strong character arcs, O’Malley does have crazy over-the-top stylistic elements. There’s a mysterious dude who cuts through a streetcar. There are random doors that open into “subspace,” allowing some of the characters to teleport through reality. There is a super-spectacularly awesome sword fight featuring wu-shu style moves that ranks as one of my favorite action sequences in comics of the whole year. Then there are the little stylistic touches, including things I don’t want to give away like the brilliant reveal about the mysterious swordsman or the latest evil ex (and the foreshadowing of the next two), or Ramona’s “Titanium Baseball Bat - +1 against blondes” or Scott gaining experience points when he gets a job. There’s enough super-cool weirdness to carry a book without strong characters or plot, so the book is basically a double threat.

Actually, make that a triple threat, because Scott Pilgrim also features some of the best cartooning in the business. O’Malley’s work on all the volumes has been impressive, but his work on volume four is probably the best yet. I will cop to the fact that I sometimes can’t tell all the girls apart (some of them are basically the same girl but with freckles, and Ramona and Lisa Miller are almost identical), but that’s easy to forgive because it’s usually quite clear from context and there is a “Handy Guide to the Potentially Confusing World of Scott Pilgrim” right on the first page. Besides, the characters are so expressive that I wouldn’t want to lose O’Malley’s unique, deceptively simple designs. Where O’Malley really raised his game on this volume was in the increasingly clever layouts, the spectacular background detail and the terrific use of design elements like motion lines and sound effects. There’s some truly outstanding work in the conclusion of this volume, my favorite being O’Malley’s use of a two-page splash page that was broken up by a panel border lines in the concluding sword fight. The simultaneous use of two full pages and four panels to convey essentially two panels worth of big action leaves no doubt that you have just witnessed the climactic scene of the entire book.

There are any number of panels and pages like that, including a similar splash panel depicting a chase scene involving Ramona Flowers on rollerskates and a stunning two-pager where the mysterious swordsman chops his way through a streetcar. When something big happens in Scott Pilgrim Volume 4, you are not just cued by the story, but by the art, that something big has happened.

I’d also like to point out that O’Malley, a talented writer and artist, is also one of the best letterers I’ve seen. His standard lettering is not only striking and readable, it has a sort of charm that makes it a perfect fit for the book. But where he really stands out is in his use of sound effects. The computer style font for experience gained, level ups and the occasional indicator like “Work” really give you a feeling for the videogame-influenced world Scott Pilgrim lives in, and the vibrant, explosive sound effects, whether it’s standard stuff like “Crash” and “Whump” or more unusual touches like “Stride” and “Clutch” really enhance the sense of fun and wild abandon that is part and parcel of the Scott Pilgrim experience.

Scott Pilgrim remains a unique comic book, a blend of influences so diverse that it’s easily recommended to just about anyone. You like manga, whether of the Bleach/Naruto action variety or the Hana-Kimi/Fruits Basket relationship variety? Dig the esoteric videogame humor of Penny-Arcade? Like indy slice-of-life relationship books like Strangers in Paradise? If the answer is yes to any of those questions, you’ll probably like Scott Pilgrim. There probably isn’t any comic you can recommend to everyone, but Scott Pilgrim comes close, and volume four shows why the series has gained such overwhelming praise.

This is an early review. Scott Pilgrim Vol 4 will be published November 14th.